Tuesday’s episode of Below Deck was a scary one. Deckhand Ashton Pienaar nearly drowned when he fell overboard from the swim deck while he was trying to get the tender boat connected to the yacht as they sailed away from Tahiti. The Captain called him “the luckiest of all” after he survived his brush with death. Read on for more details about the accident.

Ashton was on the deck, helping with the lines. He was unaware that he was standing on the wrong side of the line. Within seconds, his foot got tangled and he was pulled into the water. His fellow deck mate Rhylee Gerber immediately alerted Captain Lee that there was a "man overboard.

“As I hit the water, I was fighting to get my head up, to get air. I realized the line is going to now take tension. Nobody would have got to me in time to stop the bleeding and I would have bled out in the water,” he explained. “Brent managed to get those lines up just in time. I owe my life to the guy.”

Photo credit: Getty

Photo credit: Getty

Captain Lee addressed the severity with the crew members on board. He told his employees, "we got extremely lucky," before he called the South African "the luckiest of them all."

Photo credit: Getty

Photo credit: Getty

In his interview to the viewers, Captain Lee said, "We were within 30 seconds of him dying." "It scares the F*** out of me. We averted catastrophe through luck and that's what I want the crew to realize," he continued.